Pastor to ride for a cause

SOUTH BEND -- Jim Fair, 59, a pastor at Trinity Evangelical Free Church in South Bend, will leave this week on a coast-to-coast bicycle trip to raise money for the Amanda Gives Back Foundation.

The foundation was established in memory of a courageous girl, Amanda Mitchell of South Bend, who as a 14-year-old lost her struggle with osteosarcoma cancer in July 2009. She was the daughter of John and Christine Mitchell.

The foundation raises money for cancer research and to "accessorize" the hospital rooms of young cancer patients with the items that would help take their minds off cancer, Fair said.

Donations can be made through the website http://www.amandagivesback.org.

Also, Fair plans to keep a journal during his trip at coasttocoastjim.blogspot. com.

Granted a two-month sabbatical by his church, Fair will be riding from Saturday to May 5, covering some 2,600 miles from San Diego to Brunswick, Ga.

He will be riding with 30 bicyclists, most of them older than 55. They will average 75 to 80 miles daily.

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The group will be supported by a Christian cycling organization called Wandering Wheels out of Upland, Ind.

In preparing for the trip, Fair has ridden 850 miles since Jan. 1, losing 15 pounds in the process.

In addition to riding for Amanda Gives Back, Fair said he also is informally "riding as a testimony that a person with heart disease (diagnosed in 1996) can still do some pretty extraordinary things when one takes care of himself with proper diet, exercise and meds."

Fair rode coast-to-coast with Wandering Wheels in 1974 when he was just out of college.